George Will: Colleges becoming victims of progressivism

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Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous, and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.

Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, aka “sexual assault.” Herewith, a Philadelphia magazine report about Swarthmore College, where in 2013 a student “was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months”:

“They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. ... And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

Six weeks later, the woman reported she had been raped. The Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.

The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009-12 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent.

Department of Education lawyers disregard pesky arithmetic and elementary due process. Threatening to withdraw federal funding, DOE mandates adoption of a minimal “preponderance of the evidence” standard when adjudicating sexual assault charges between males and the female “survivors” — note the language of prejudgment. Combine this with definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching. Then add the doctrine that the consent of a female who has been drinking might not protect a male from being found guilty of rape. Then comes litigation against institutions that have denied due process to males they accuse of what society considers serious felonies.

Meanwhile, the newest campus idea for preventing victimizations — certain to multiply claims of them — is “trigger warnings.” They would be placed on assigned readings or announced before lectures. Otherwise, traumas could be triggered in students whose tender sensibilities would be lacerated by unexpected encounters with racism, sexism, violence or any other facet of reality that might violate a student’s entitlement to serenity.

What government is inflicting on colleges and universities, and what they are inflicting on themselves, diminishes their autonomy, resources, prestige and comity. Which serves them right. They have asked for this by asking for progressivism.

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The very idea that being a victim of sexual assault is somehow coveted or confers a special status is beyond asinine. It is insulting to everyone who has ever been a victim of sexual assault and rape.

George Will should be ashamed for ever writing this and the Capital Journal should be ashamed for publishing it. I call upon the editors of the Capital Journal to issue an apology for printing this and to remove George Will from their list of acceptable authors.

Ah yes, another manefestation of progressivism: silence and remove those with whom you disagree. One might try to read the article with a degree of understanding. Will was describing a wide range of actions, some serious and others undeserving the label, that are considered sexual assault. The female is always considered the victim even if the evidence appears that the act was consensual. Put the knee jerk and political correctness away and consider the issue in an adult manner.

First off you completely missed Will's point on this and saw only what you wanted too. Second, just because you disagree with something doesn't mean the writer should be ostracized and reprimanded and their writings be immediately ripped from the newspaper. As much as liberals want that to be standard policy.

an excellent article highlighting just some of what Will got wrong.
George Will has always been a shill for the right wing outlook, but this column is so egregious in it's 'blame the victim' mentality that he has destroyed any hint of credibility he may have ever possessed. A person who writes what he did, believes it, has no place in our discussion on sexual assault and violence because blaming the victim is not an answer.

American Heritage Dictionary definition of fascism: "...a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

I can't find anything here worth commenting about except that, contrary to what I thought, George Shill actually is a sentient human being.

His conclusion about progressivism, though, is unfounded by the context. He just wants to privatize education (give as much as possible to the richest families) and then we'll no doubt see how campus rapes go down or are simply covered up as they too often are now.

Meanwhile, the American student debt is over a trillion and surely most of that to private education institutions. Too bad we don't get progressive like Finland or Norway who produce some of the smartest folks in the world.

What we really need is Kochucation. Anybody who graduates will be a parrot for right-wing libertarian "values." We will then have hundreds of thousands of George Wills running around. It'll be like a zombie apocalypse.

... conservatives are having a hard time getting the voting support of women. It seems to me that Mr. Will and many others are doing everything they can to try and help. I'm sure his daughters, if he has any, truly appreciate his stance. When presented with a choice of progress or back tracking, why would anybody want to be a progressive. Oh if we had just listened to Jefferson and just all been small farmers none of this hideous progressive stuff would have ever been needed. No need for road programs, schools, or even law enforcement. Oh for the good old days .....